Despite Clear Video Evidence, Fox Personalities Try to Rewrite Pelosi, Nichols Attacks
Footage of both beatings were released publicly on Friday
At Fox News, their own eyes aren't enough for some on-camera personalities.
In at least two instances, those appearing on the right-wing network aggressively tried to question and recast the unrelated, brutal attacks on the 82-year-old husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and motorist Tyre Nichols.
Authorities on Friday released a video clip — running just over 1 ½ minutes — and was part of a batch of evidence released in the case against suspect, David DePape, in the beating attack against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 82-year-old husband, Paul, in the couple's San Francisco, Calif., home.
The attack on the ex-speaker's husband has been the subject of bizarre conspiracy theories from the political right, including billionaire industrialist and Twitter owner, Elon Musk.
That includes the baseless claim that — despite the suspect's own confession — he was invited to the Pelosi home in some kind of gay tryst gone bad.
And at least one on-camera appearance on Fox News tried to keep those false narratives alive.
In one case, the Fox hosts leading the interview had to correct the commentator in real-time, on-camera.
Right-wing attorney Brian Claypool demanded evidence of breaking and entering into the Pelosi home — while video of the break-in played on screen.
Claypool wouldn't stop trying to spread his baseless allegations — even when he himself admitted he could well be wrong.
Here's an excerpt of the exchange among Claypool and hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts.
CLAYPOOL: “Yeah. No, the other issue is, look, where is the evidence of a breaking and entering? I get what you’re saying, Sandra, about always casing the area. Has anybody seen —“
Smith: “There’s video of him breaking through the house. There’s video of him breaking —“
CLAYPOOL: “I haven’t seen a video of him breaking through the house.”
Smith: “Okay, it’s on the screen right now.”
CLAYPOOL: “Okay.”
Smith: “I assume it’s with the hammer that you later see him with, but there’s clear video that we have been given outside of the house, the attacker is on the right side of the screen breaking through the house.”
CLAYPOOL: “Got it. Great. Then maybe that’s true, maybe I’m wrong.”
ROBERTS: “He’s clearly using that to break in.”
CLAYPOOL: “Yeah, ok. Can’t we talk more about — what is the DOJ [Justice Department] doing? Are we supposed to just give a hall pass on such an important fact that to me, I think — I think there was a clear narrative that the DOJ wanted to propagate in this, and we have been going through this with other occasions. Hunter Biden thing, with the Mar-a-Lago, you know, search warrant. I think that’s really, to me, the biggest takeaway. Why is there not truth in what happened with that entry?”
Separately, Fox News's hard-right, primetime host, Tucker Carlson, tried to recast the other vicious beating making news Friday, that of Tyre Nichols in Nashville, Tenn.
Footage shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack.
Rather than evince any sympathy or empathy for Nichols and his grieving family, Carlson used his killing as a prop to try to glorify an ongoing hero on the right, Ashli Babbitt.
Babbitt was among those violent supporters of Donald Trump's at the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol Building.
Despite warning, Babbitt attempted to breach a restricted area of the House floor and was shot and killed by law enforcement.
Carlson, Friday, tried to frame Babbitt — not Nichols — as the true victim of police brutality.
Nichols was Black, while Babbitt was white, and the Fox host has a history with on-camera white supremacy.
“So, of course, the very same people who are weeping on television about police brutality applauded when one of Nancy Pelosi’s officers murdered an unarmed woman called Ashli Babbitt,” Carlson claimed on his Friday program.
“Yes, murder. That’s exactly what that was. Far more clearly than anything you just saw in the videotape we played,” Carlson added, referring to the footage of the Nichols killing. “So, of course, the point of this is to federalize local law enforcement. Obviously, it’s never about saving anybody’s life. It’s about accumulating power.”
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